World Water Day Series #8 - “We Know the Value of Water When the Well is Dry” Ben Franklin

By Rich Cavagnaro, President

Welcome to our blog series in honor of World Water Day! The United Nations declared 2013 as the “International Year of Water Cooperation.” The employees at AdEdge have a passion for clean water and providing safe drinking water for people throughout the world. 

World Water Day 2013 is here and as we think of the many issues facing the water industry in the coming year(s), Steve Maxwell author of “The Future of Water” has said, “one thing for sure is known, we are inevitably faced with the challenge that water is going to cost more…the question is how much more?”

In the United States, we are faced with an aging infrastructure, new regulations, water scarcity issues, climate change challenges, lack of funding and operator staffing needs. These issues aren't unique to the U.S. and the rest of the world faces similar challenges and likely may be in worse shape due to the lack of existing infrastructure. Population growth in many countries coupled with emerging water stressed regions is causing havoc on communities to even survive and can cripple their economic development. The financial hurdle to fund this infrastructure ensuring safe drinking water or proper wastewater treatment systems is not readily available. Therefore the cost of funding these projects will have a cost associated with it.

AdEdge has been meeting these challenges with our customers around the world by offering treatment technologies to remove a multitude of contaminants including arsenic, iron, uranium, VOC’s and many others. We design our systems to: minimize energy consumption, conserve water, lessen or eliminate operator resources, choose technologies that lower capital costs, and to protect our customers on increasing water rates by offering water reuse capabilities.

So, while water remains under appreciated and undervalued, our customers are not. Our staff constantly rises to the challenge of working with our clients around the world to create a positive impact on their water treatment needs and thereby ensuring we carry out and share our Passion for Clean Water.

World Water Day Series #7 - Clean, Safe Drinking Water is a Basic Human Right

By Richard J. Cavagnaro, Marketing Coordinator

Welcome to our blog series in honor of World Water Day on Friday, March 22^nd! The United Nations declared 2013 as the “International Year of Water Cooperation.” The employees at AdEdge have a passion for clean water and providing safe drinking water for people throughout the world. Over the next week and half, we will be exploring some of the ways AdEdge is making a difference in helping the global water crisis.

A little less than two years ago, I had the privilege of traveling to the Navajo Nation in Arizona with Helping Hands for Water, a non-profit group started by a group of employees at AdEdge. I spent three days in the remote desert along with two other members of the non-profit doing a site visit for a community we are working with to provide a uranium treatment system. In order to fully understand the problem with the drinking water and how it influences everyday life in this community, we decided to fully immerse ourselves into the Navajo lifestyle. We toured abandoned uranium mines, visited several wells contaminated with arsenic and uranium, but the most impactful part of the experience was talking with the members of the community to get their perspective on the water crisis. Some people on the reservation travel over an hour to fill up containers of water and unfortunately, for many of these people, the only option is contaminated water.

It’s reported that this well is causing congestive heart failure, cancer and kidney failure among those who depend upon it as their primary water source. One woman I met with goes to a funeral every month because of a water-related death. Another woman informed me that her seven-year-old daughter had a ten-pound tumor removed from her thyroid earlier in the year. Generations of Navajos have lived on the same land for decades and many are worried this generation may be the last.

The sad thing is this community is not alone. Tens of thousands of communities throughout the world only have access to water that is contaminated. That is their only option. In 2013, it should be a basic human right to have access to clean and safe drinking water. We at AdEdge are continuing to do our part to ensure every single person on this planet can have drinking water free of contamination so generations can grow up healthy.

World Water Day #6 - Containerized Systems: Perfect Solutions for Remote Locations

Eric Nicol, Project Manager

Welcome to our blog series in honor of World Water Day on Friday, March 22^nd! The United Nations declared 2013 as the “International Year of Water Cooperation.” The employees at AdEdge have a passion for clean water and providing safe drinking water for people throughout the world. Over the next week and half, we will be exploring some of the ways AdEdge is making a difference in helping the global water crisis.

The increasing pursuit of natural resources – oil and gas as well as mining exploration for metals and precious gems – throughout the world is creating a greater need for clean water solutions in remote areas; however, this increasing demand comes with specific needs to support mining camps with potable water or to provide remediation treatment equipment for mine dewatering. AdEdge designed a unique and economical solution to meet the rising need of clean water in this industry called the WaterPod. The WaterPod is customizable and can be configured in a 10’, 20’, 40’ or 50’ length to house the treatment equipment – pumps, tanks, controls and other ancillary equipment—required for the site needs. Multiple WaterPods can also be configured in a single site to meet the demand.

The basis of the WaterPod design begins with a standard seafaring shipping container, which is then outfitted with insulation, HVAC equipment, man-doors, windows, and lighting. This design platform allows AdEdge to incorporate multiple treatment technologies into single or multiple units such as reverse osmosis, oxidation/filtration, coagulation/filtration, ion exchange, UV as well as our InGenius control system and any required chemical feed or regenerant equipment. This approach allows AdEdge to fully control installation, quality control and factory testing of each individual component in our controlled environment facility ensuring the WaterPod arrives without defect. WaterPods are dropped on location with minimal infrastructure requirements for a true plug and play approach for quickly achieving the water needs and quality goals of the location.

World Water Day # 5 - Staffing Needs For SWS - How Remote Monitoring Can Bridge the Gap

By Antonio Inojal, Project Engineer

Welcome to our blog series in honor of World Water Day on Friday, March 22^nd! The United Nations declared 2013 as the “International Year of Water Cooperation.” The employees at AdEdge have a passion for clean water and providing safe drinking water for people throughout the world. Over the next week and half, we will be exploring some of the ways AdEdge is making a difference in helping the global water crisis.

In today’s digital age of the internet, smart mobile devices, and an ever-expanding cellular network, the water industry is evolving to make use of technology to improve how operators manage water treatment systems. Although the concept of remote monitoring is not new, it has certainly gained momentum by technologies such as M2M and VPN. Municipalities managing small water systems often do not have the resources to install a complete SCADA system to monitor all of their treatment sites, wells and pumps. Therefore they depend on their operators to arrange regular travel to remote sites to perform monitoring and check system statuses and alarms. AdEdge Water Technologies integrates advanced industrial controls technologies to bring remote monitoring solutions for AdEdge treatment systems.

The site’s internet access is crucial in establishing remote connectivity to the treatment system, and this can come in a number of ways. DSL is widely available by phone companies and has become quite commonplace. Alternatively where DSL or other technologies are not available, a cellular modem may be planned contingent on the availability of cellular service on-site. One particular drawback with cellular connectivity is that cellular companies are not likely to assign a static IP to a SIM card. This is commonly handled by quite inexpensive services likely DynDNS. Once internet access is granted, the AdEdge treatment system can be set-up to allow the operator to access the HMI’s built-in server through a web browser, which allows the operator to look at the screens in near real-time, move through the screens, and even make modifications. The extent of how much the logged-in user can do is based on what has been allowed in the set-up of the HMI. Moreover, the HMI can be configured to send emails when particular events such as alarms are triggered. One of the emails where the alarm message is conveyed may be the one associated with the operator’s cell phone, which can be used to send a text message; the latter is an effective alternative to auto-dialers. In addition, the HMI can also be accessed through mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads, which allow operators to be at one job-site and “respond” using their phone to issues occurring at another site without having to actually travel there. The possibilities are growing; our generation is becoming more mobile and tech-savvy. AdEdge is helping the water industry become more connected.

World Water Day Series #4 - Two Types of Green

By Paul Matz, Senior Project Engineer

Welcome to our blog series in honor of World Water Day on Friday, March 22^nd! The United Nations declared 2013 as the “International Year of Water Cooperation.” The employees at AdEdge have a passion for clean water and providing safe drinking water for people throughout the world. Over the next week and half, we will be exploring some of the ways AdEdge is making a difference in helping the global water crisis.

AdEdge Technologies’ mission is to help people get clean drinking water and provide water suitable for use in a myriad of businesses.    In today’s news where the economy is front and center, World Water Day is a light that shines on our company’s mission and adds it to the hot topics: The economy.   Water and money are all very important issues that we help our clients deal with every day at AdEdge.  Municipalities charge money for the delivery of clean water for use in homes and businesses.  Municipalities charge money for the opportunity to treat and clean the waste we send into the sewers.   In areas where municipal water sources are not available, water must be pumped, treated and monitored independently.  And it feels like the prices for these services increase year after year in order to keep up with demand and inflation which adds additional stresses in today’s economic times. 

At AdEdge, we have seen an uptick in communities and companies looking for ways to reduce costs and find ways to safely treat and reuse water while increasing their GREEN status.     At AdEdge, we have increased the number of pilot studies we do to address requests by clients to investigate their options to save money and increase their GREEN business portfolios and everyone has been very happy with the results.